The Moon and Jupiter Close In

Look for them together from dusk Tuesday to dawn Wednesday

By J. Alex Knoll

Sunset Thursday and Friday finds the waxing moon high overhead in the company of Gemini’s Castor and Pollux above, Canis Minor’s Procyon below and Orion’s Betelgeuse off to the west. Come Saturday the moon is in the constellation Cancer, too faint to compete against lunar glare.
Come Sunday, the moon has a new companion, the bright star Regulus trailing a dozen degrees behind. The brightest star in Leo, Regulus is also part of the asterism called the Sickle of Leo, which looks like a backward question mark, the star marking the dot at the bottom.
Monday’s full moon — the Snow Moon and the Hunger Moon — trails Regulus, while bright Jupiter follows the moon by roughly the same distance. Finally, Tuesday evening the moon and Jupiter are within two degrees of each another, appearing as a tight pair until sunrise.
Just two weeks shy of opposition, Jupiter is at its best and brightest, rising in the east around 7:30pm and shining high in the south at 1:30am and brilliant above the western horizon at dawn. Dawn highlights the other four naked-eye planets. Mars rises around 1:30am, and by 6am it is high in the south. The red planet is just beyond the head of Scorpius, and it is 15 degrees from the scorpion’s red heart, the bright star Antares, whose name means Rival of Mars. You’ll have ample time to compare them in coming weeks as Mars drifts closer to Antares.
Contrast that to golden Saturn to the east, creating a skewed triangle with Antares and Mars. You’ll find the ringed planet in the southeastern sky as dawn begins to brighten the horizon.
Venus and Mercury rise just before dawn. Venus blazes brighter than all but the sun and moon, and Mercury, just a few degrees lower, shines at a respectable magnitude –0.1); even so, you’ll need an unobstructed view of the east-southeast horizon and likely binoculars to spot them.